


The Necropolis Ltd.

by mikawritesthings



Series: The Micah Elsinore Cinematic Universe [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Flash Fiction, One-off, Original Character centered, Other, Season 5 Spoilers, kind of a self-insert i GUESS, mostly just me taking an OC and putting them in the context of s5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23897728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikawritesthings/pseuds/mikawritesthings
Summary: There is a library of the Eye, somewhere across the ocean. This is not the story of that library. This is the story of a train.
Relationships: Original Nonbinary Character/The End
Series: The Micah Elsinore Cinematic Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722463
Kudos: 2





	The Necropolis Ltd.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Library of Fear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23878078) by [Nausicaa_E](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nausicaa_E/pseuds/Nausicaa_E). 



> Just me goofing off with the season 5 format, as well as an idea I had for a ghost train. I wrote this in, like, the space of an hour. Please be nice to me.

There is a train that runs deep beneath London. This train is not as mundane as the Underground, though there are certain places where the barriers grow thin between the two. This is a literal road to hell, a ghost train that the dead ride to commute from afterlife to afterlife, and the living ride from a false sense of security to a deep, paralyzing fear. Over each entrance into its labyrinthine tunnels and catacomb-like stations is a sign. Not “abandon all hope, ye who enter here”; this sentiment does little to warn unfortunate mortals of the terror that lies within. Rather, this sign reads “Memento Mori.”

In the chaos of armageddon that lies aboveground, there are some mortals who see death as a respite from the living hell that is the apocalypse. Those who ride this train will realize the truth, as they speed past the stony tunnels, lifeless salt pans, and fields of asphodel along the line: they only fear what is above because they fear what is below. For all fear, as one regular commuter on this train has mused, stems from the fear of the End. It’s simple, really. Deep down inside, at their respective cores, living beings do not want to die.

Amelia huddles in her seat, knees hugged close to her chest. There are no other passengers in the endless rows of seats both before and behind her, no crowd for her to blend into. Nor are there any passers-through in the seemingly infinite corridor of the train car, except for one. She can hear their footsteps, slow and casual. They’re taking their time, for they know that no matter how fast Amelia runs, how far ahead of them she tries to get, they will, eventually, inevitably, catch up to her. When they catch up to her, all they’ll have to do will be to lay a hand on her shoulder, ask politely to see her ticket, and she’ll be gone. And Amelia is a smart girl; she knows this too. So she sits, and she waits, and remembers how precious her breath is as she tries not to scream.

Juan wanders his way along the corridor. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, nor does he know if he’ll ever get to leave. The cars have been endless strange and hollow variations of what one might find on a train of the living. At the moment, he’s in a dinner car. On both sides, spectral passengers pick at plates of blue will-o’-wisps and blood-red pomegranate seeds, never looking each other in the eye. He can feel some of them watching him with an idle curiosity, a strange hunger for the beating heart and pumping blood beneath his flushed, lively skin. At least, some of them envy him. As he glances out the window to the view of a sunset beyond, he tries to ignore his knowledge that most of the passengers on this train don’t envy him; they pity him.

Lyra waits at one of the many stations along the line. This one has the bones of the dead embedded in the walls, femurs and tibias and vertebrae tracing decorative patterns across the molding. She’d almost call it “tacky,” if her wits were more about her. Hard to think, though, when it’s so bloody cold down here: a kind of cold that doesn’t need a wind chill to bite right into you. None of the crowd around her seems to notice the cold. Their mournful faces are all turned towards the LCD display above, waiting for the next train to arrive. “When did all these people enter?” she wonders. “I didn’t hear them come in.” Then she looks at where the subway entrance should be, only to find more of those skeletal walls, sturdy and forbidding. One of her fellow passengers-to-be looks at her with dark, lifeless eye sockets. With a humorless grin, he says, “Might as well board a train.”

There is a stop on this railroad line that few are lucky enough to find. It’s a theater with no seating for the audience, only a stage and an endless starry void beyond. At the edge of this stage sit two lovers. The one, a mortal who sought death as a final resting place; the other, a gentle manifestation of that resting place itself. This ex-mortal, the sleepwalker, has roamed aboveground before. They were comfortable in their knowledge that no matter what happened, it would be impossible to kill them again.

Now, however, they shelter in the theatre of the dead, and rest their head on the shoulder of the End herself. For the first time in years, they are afraid again.

**Author's Note:**

> If all goes well, I'll be playing around with the Necropolis Ltd. more often. Might also have Oliver Banks make an appearance in a later fic. Maybe also my boi Nathaniel Thorp. Who knows.


End file.
